.

Souls of the Night Vol 3

43.

Sonny literally dragged me out of the restaurant. Through the public area for solvent but less illustrious customers than Graziella Dracon or Domenika Destine, through the kitchen, through the tiled corridor full of crates of fruit and other goods for the restaurant and out a door. No one tried to help me, no one even looked in our direction for more than a second probably because Sonny Wilson (just Mr. Sonny-who needed last names?) was dragging a guy toward his death before their eyes. Everyone was smarter than that. I should have been smarter than that. But I wasn't able to resist Sonny, despite my fervent assurances of loving Lexington and the clan and patching up our relationship. Maybe it was the alcohol. It certainly was. Alcohol made me ... different. I was always different but alcohol made me different different. Outside he dropped me like I was nothing more than a bag of garbage myself between stinky black trash bags. I was a little dizzy and my legs and feet felt like sore, hot rubber from the day's exertions so I claimed it as a success that I could turn over on my back in my bed of garbage. Sonny looked down at me - his expression indecipherably neutral but the sound he made was quite brusque. I smiled at him before my head sank back into the crackling plastic.

"You'd win any poker face championship," I muttered.

"You're drunk, buttercup," he said, and in my laughter you could hear the slight schizophrenic hysteria that always crept into my mind in such absurd situations.

"I'm a shitty drunk," I confirmed cheerfully, not knowing why I was cheerful? I was going to die. Dying! It wasn't like it was months ago. Despite everything, I didn't want to die. I wanted to go home, tie my leg to the bedpost so I wouldn't float away or sleepwalk, sleep it off so I could go to work on Monday and if Lexington wasn't there (who could blame him if he preferred to work from home after that scene?) I'd scrape together enough courage to go to him so I could explain myself.

Sonny huffed like a disgruntled bull, turned slightly away from me and reached for his side. There - that's it now. Sonny would "take care of me". A phenomenal end to a phenomenal life. The thought of never seeing Lexington again and instead leaving him alone with the false conviction that, after everything I'd been through as a human being, I had sought out someone to satisfy "my needs" brought tears to my eyes.

"Please," I choked out, although it was quite obvious to me that plenty of other people had already pleaded with Sonny for their lives and had certainly not been spared. "Please don't let anyone from my clan find my body. Please, Sonny. Please."

But instead of hearing the crack of the safety on his gun, I saw a glimmer of light, lifted my head, and saw Sonny typing away on his cell phone.

"Who are you texting NOW?" I whined shrilly, sounding like an ignored girlfriend. I really didn't want to speed up my murder but damn - wasn't I even worth a quick shot? This tension was killing me.

A thought that made me laugh.

"God, you're a terrible drunk, your moods change by the minute," Sonny muttered. "I'll text someone to pick you up. I don't like leaving my drunk boss and our cub alone - especially not for a weenie like you."

My laughter grew louder and yappier.

"Someone to pick me up? And take me home? Ur villain card will expire!"

"Oh shut up," Sonny growled, kicking one of my legs, but even though it hurt because of the bruises under my clothes, I knew he wasn't putting a fraction of his true strength or perhaps justified anger into the act.

"You're much nicer than you pretend to be. Graziella too, I think. You wouldn't have to be enemies with the clan. You could become decent. Then Nash and Graziella could be happy together," I mumbled, bobbing my head from side to side in a daze.

"Man, tell me about it," Sonny said tiredly before I nodded away.

.

.

"Doctor."

Enya pressed pause and looked up from her tablet computer and saw Thailog standing near her. Still a yard away but usually he didn't even get that close to her because he found her disgusting and probably had the best understanding of what people considered normal and therefore could judge disgusting better than she could.

Enya sat on Brentwood's mattress in the attic because she always used to do that when she felt lonely and had "women's troubles". The dull, cramping pains she had during those days of the month were the only pains she didn't like and she would have had all that useless uterus and ovary stuff ablated long ago if this hadn't been one of her traumas. She didn't want to let other doctors get close to her. And unfortunately she couldn't cut open her stomach herself and take out everything that was useless. Just because she felt less pain didn't mean she couldn't bleed to death. She also felt strangely fragile on these days and even masturbating was a pain in the ass. Not because her hands or her toys became sticky, but because something inside her was always screaming that things were too strange. Blood came from wounds or injuries. Bleeding without someone having inflicted wounds on her first seemed so ... unnatural. People were strange, women were strange. Rationally, she knew that her body functioned naturally in this relationship, but she really wished she had been made differently despite the rushed circumstances at the time. The only good thing about her period was that she always had the reassurance that her recent escapades had had no undesirable consequences.

Thailog held out a hot water bottle to her and it was, from the outside, the attentive gesture of a "child" to its ... very young mother or older sister. Enya took the warm, wobbly rubber object and pressed it against her abdomen.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked.

Just a question, no suspicion, no malice. Just an acknowledgment that Thailog Alexander Xanatos (or Loghtai Alexander Sevarius) did nothing, nothing remotely nice, without wanting three times as much in return.

Enya knew that, Thailog knew that she knew it. But it amused her that his exaggerated theatrical trait that he had "inherited" from the original Sevarius came out as he brought a clawed hand to his chest in mock shock, making a sweetly droll face of astonishment that almost belied the fact that he was a grotesque apparition even as a child.

"Moi? Je ne peux pas faire quelque chose de gentil pour ma "mère" juste pour le plaisir d'être gentil?"

Immediately afterwards, he flashed a grin full of gleaming white fangs and his red eyes sparkled with joy. He was a monster in many ways and Enya was delighted that this brilliant beast was her master.

"No, I don't think you're being friendly for the sake of being friendly. You bring me nothing out of kindness. And you rarely call me Doctor without a taunting undertone. I'm no longer as blank and gullible as I was back then. But you are my master, you only have to ask and if I can do it without putting our clan in danger, I will try to follow your instructions, you know that."

Thailog smiled, came to her and although he didn't sit down on the stained, smelly mattress of course, he leaned against the wall next to it, looked at Enya's screen and for a moment the geneticist (without a license) wondered if today was one of those rare days when the, for Thailog himself disgusting and humiliating hatchling instincts made him want to be near his clan members.

"What are you looking at?" he asked and okay- Enya was pretty sure something was going on here. Thailog wasn't nice and he certainly wasn't interested in what Enya was doing if she wasn't following any of his projects. Still, she looked to the side and up at him. A position that made her throat ache where the strangulation marks of one of Enya's more emasculated participants from her last foray into the lowest realms of the city were still visible.

"I'm learning," she said, "It's an old show. It's called the Brady Bunch. It is unsettling. I liked The human centipede better."

"What's there to learn?"

"I'm not sure yet. But you said there's always something for someone like me to learn in the human machinations. They're a - what do the humans call it? - a patchwork family. Just like us. But they're so disturbingly nice to each other. I still have trouble with nice, too nice or not nice at all."

"If these Brady family are TOO nice to each other, they're more of an example of how not to do it," Thailog said and Enya could only agree with him. These Brady kids were always being stupid or disobedient. But they rarely fight among themselves. One girl had taken a football to the nose, but it hadn't even been intentional. It was a strange show and Enya didn't understand why people would watch it because real human families certainly didn't behave like that. But she liked the fact that daddy and mommy Brady loved each other. That looked ... desirable. The show was hokey and wasn't funny, but Enya prided herself on learning something from everything, even if she didn't know what she was learning most of the time.

Thailog tilted his head, giving Enya a thoughtful and almost proud look. Then he brought his claw to her face and stroked her cheek. This gesture ... so ... threatening and loving made Enya freeze. Not because of the threat, though.

"Always studying so hard. Always so diligent for your clan. Such a good woman. I tell you far too seldom how valuable your contribution is to us. You are ... loyal and are a good human servant."

"Partner," Enya corrected automatically.

"Partner, of course. Even more ...a Clan sister."

"Sister?" Enya's smile had turned into a sneer as startling as Thailog's during the eulogy. The two monsters (both in their own way) bared their teeth at each other and both deemed it the nicest expressions they were capable of. Enya was smart. And yes, not as blank - literally blank - as she had been 15 years ago. But Thailog just had to pull different, less familiar strings and she was game and moving in exactly the direction he wanted. He was the most brilliant mind in North America (in his humble self-assessment). Enya was just ... a flawed product, little more than a figment of a real woman, though she had a great deal of knowledge in her fields. The natural fear, the natural distrust that one should have of something and someone like Thailog was completely alien to her. Normal people with normally functioning brains would have understood his words as a siren song out of the instinct for self-preservation alone. Enya was simply distraught with happiness at the recognition she had never received before. And Thailog didn't stop there - he couldn't now that Enya's fragile common sense was gone.

"I have something for you, Sister. Such a valuable member of our clan - someone who even builds a mate for his brother, so selfless and good and eager to please - needs a better environment to pursue her urges.

"A better environment?" Enya asked, mesmerized by his blood-red eyeballs with their deep black pupils, which seemed to stare into her without seeing garbage this time.

"I've been toying with the idea for a while, but now that you're obviously looking for more fulfillment in the wake of creating our new addition to the family, I don't want any misfortune to befall you if you can't dictate the terms yourself, Doctor."

He pulled a business card out of his trouser pocket and Enya accepted the gift with wide eyes.

"Guilty pleasures?" she read, looking questioningly at her dearest but enigmatic filial master. "I'm not allowed to go there anymore. I'm banned from the house."

"Nobody remembers you there. The worms have long since devoured your deeds. I've booked you a gold membership with a preference for masochism. All the employees there are tested, clean, discreet and know how to hurt without going too far. They will bandage your wounds afterwards if necessary. You will then be driven home and brought to your bed if necessary. I no longer want you to come back by bus, train or cab. You are putting yourself in too much danger and drawing too much attention to us. You are indispensable, especially soon as we will have a new gargoyle among us who needs to be molded, shaped and trained.

"You're gifting me this?" Enya asked with an uncertain smile, but the wrinkles in her forehead showed that doubts and questions were trying to creep to the surface of her damaged brain.

"I'm not gifting you anything. I'm making sure that as a valuable clan member you can safely pursue your inclinations. That's what a clan leader does." Thailog explained patiently in his calm, less insane seducer voice. Before he struck the final blow. His claw was now resting under Enya's chin, forcing her head up and he could feel her pulse hammering against it as if her body wanted him to pierce her skin. Enya was panting for breath, looking as if she wanted to come to at the very thought.

"There are employees there who act as gargoyles. They can custom design some of the humans there in your preferred color and to your liking. They could put claw rings on them. It would feel like the real thing. A consolation until Etan down there is available to you and Brentwood. You can pick any date you want ... but I've booked a session for you next week with some suitable candidates. A ... Let's call it a try-out session." Thailog concluded and bathed in Enya's flushed face. The pathetic creature in front of him bit her lip without taking her eyes off the card so hard that he could sniff blood . Blood and arousal.

"Thank you Master Thailog. Thank you," she said hoarsely and squeezed her legs together. Thailog tried hard not to let his surging disgust show, smiled his most glorious smirk once more, patted Enya's head patronizingly and somewhat roughly as she preferred. As soon as he turned away, his falsely placid smile fell away, leaving the grim, deceitful expression of determination.

.

.

Perhaps it was conditioning, perhaps an echo that had adapted my sense of hearing so that, despite the noise of the city, I woke up instantly when I heard the soft fluttering of wings. I was still lying in the garbage bags with my face to the sky and that's why I saw them first.

A pair of glowing red eyes in the smaller ghostly multi-limbed shadow, a pair of glowing white eyes in the much larger one. Then the unmistakable voice with its unmistakable tone.

"WHAT in the everlasting fuck are you doing with our goddamn uncle and brother?"

Sonny at the edge of my field of vision looked up, cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

People without my background would have found the sight and inhuman growl disturbing. All I felt was a warm feeling rising inside me as Tachi sailed down and Goliath - with no room in the alley for his massive wings - leapt over the eaves and slid down the four floors with his clawed hand rammed into the masonry, even leaping the last floor. He straightened up with a deep, not necessarily threatening snort in front of Sonny, who withstood his hard stare.

Tachi came to me and wanted to grab my hand with concern, but I grinned blissfully at the sight of my clan members.

"Heyyy Tachiii. Hey Goliath, I'm fine, I'm super fine. Lex and I are going to be fine. I love him. And you guys. I'm happy you guys are coming to visit me. Visit? No? Save me? Probably not because Sonny and I aren't friends, but maybe he didn't want to kill me. Who cares, I'm happy to see you."

As I babbled, I pawed Tachi - who was crouching by me and scanning me for injuries - with my hand on her face in an attempt to pat her cheek. Whereby beaked gargoyles didn't have much cheek and that was something that made me giggle again.

"What's wrong with him, Tachi?" Goliath asked with a worried frown, but without taking his eyes off the acute threat of Sonny.

"He smells like booze," said Tachi.

"Correctamundo! Graziella Dracon bought me an ice cream. And afterwards we drank together. And I'm a crappy drunk," I giggled.

Sonny took a drag on his cigarette.

"All true. Don't look at me like that - we didn't touch a hair on that wimp's head. And honestly - he's only had three shots of whiskey. I haven't seen such a lightweight in years."

"You made him drunk?" Goliath snapped, his wings flaring out with the sound of a fluttering tarpaulin. Even without the threatening gesture, I could hear the anger and menace in his tone.

"I didn't tell anyone anything, Goliath! No vital secrets about anything else-not that I know much. But I've kept my mouth shut as much as possible around Sonny and Vito and Graziella and Demona," I hurried to placate and straightened up clumsily, only Tachi's hands on my shoulders keeping me from slipping off the wobbly garbage bags and toppling to the side.

"Demona?" Goliath asked, staring at Sonny-and for once it was less a stare-down than a face-to-face with someone similarly tall.

Sonny puffed on his butt.

"Your lucky my boss and the red-headed witch find him far too ridiculous and unthreatening to take seriously. To them, he's ... like a neurotic hamster that you want to watch run round and round in a running wheel and lose droppings in fear when you clap your hands loudly."

Tachi next to me laughed at this and her laughter made me laugh too because it was a good analogy. Goliath's stern look silenced us where Sonny waved his hand and continued.

"Just about his current My-Boyfriend-didn't-want-to-fuck-me-after-he-saw-the-bruises-on-my-body-that-I-had-self-inflicted-because-of-these-post-Gargoyle-echoes relationship issues buttercup was venting. I would have preferred a physical fight followed by prison for myself instead of listening to THAT."

"The damn prison thing can be arranged," Tachi muttered as I hoisted myself to my feet and pointed a shaky finger at Sonny.

"You're just jealous of us! Got a life of your own or are you just Graziellas- oops!"

Goliath caught me with his tail as I stumbled and handed my currently useless and unruly carcass to Tachi. Yes- that's how I remembered it- the alcohol had to settle in me first- only then did I become ... everything I wasn't otherwise. And I already didn't like my sober self. But I would worry about feelings of guilt or embarrassing remorse and who I would have to send gift baskets to tomorrow.

Sonny rolled his eyes and didn't even bother answering me.

Goliath sighed.

"We'll take him back," he stated matter-of-factly. Now less resentment than resignation because he had probably realized that apart from being wasted, I was fine and Sonny or the Dracons OR Demona hadn't done anything to me."

"By now I'd even pay you to take him off my hands," Sonny grumbled.

"I love you too, Sunny- I mean Sonny. Hihihi, that sounds almost the same. But a sunny disposition- you still need to work on that."

"Next time I see you, I'll punch you in the face," Sonny promised with a deadpan look before throwing his cigarette on the ground and turning away. "Bye buttercup."

"Bye Sonny. Mister Sonny."

"Sonny's enough, dimwit," I heard as the door slammed shut.

Goliath turned to me and Tachi and I grinned at him.

"Hy," I repeated cheerfully and he frowned again.

"How are you?"

"It ... my feet hurt terribly."

"I believe you. We saw your phone signal and you've been walking a lot."

"Yeah- I needed that."

"And you ran into the Dracons?"

"Yes. But they didn't do anything to me. Did I tell you they bought me gelato? A huge sundae? And they let me cuddle Vito. I think they were too disturbed by my relationship situation with Lex."

"Well, Graziella has the fuck no stones to throw when it comes to relationship drama. Lex is to blame, right?" Tachi wanted to know.

"NO! It's not his fault. It was- okay- maybe we both said stupid things and then I left. But ... we're sorting it out - really. I just needed a day to think about it and being able to talk about it with people who aren't involved has helped."

I scowled as I realized I'd just said I'd rather talk to murderous mortal enemies of the clan than clan members or my highly paid therapist.

"I love him. I love you. I want to make up with him," I said in a breathy whisper, humor displaced by fatigue.

"I'm sure he wants that too," Goliath said with an encouraging smile.

"Yeah, he went to Davis almost as soon as he woke up and forced her into a therapy session," Tachi informed me. I was taken aback by that. But also delighted because it proved that Lexington was really working on himself when he went for extra sessions with the detested shrink.

Goliath turned his back to me and stooped a little. I knew the gesture. I clung to his broad neck and we made our way up the wall to the roof. Tachi stayed behind us as a back-up in case I drunken idiot slipped off Goliath.

"Should we fly you to the castle?"

"I ... not tonight. I'm not me when I'm drunk. Whether from the moon or the booze. I need to get some sleep."

"Will you be able to sleep? No mental gyrations?"

"I think so, Goliath. I'm determined to put things right with Lex. I just need - a day or two to sort myself out."

"Okay- then we'll take you to the Flatlands."

Goliath slid his arms under me and picked me up princess style which was good because there shouldn't be too much pressure on a stomach full of ice cream and whiskey.

"Thanks guys, I love you. Really really really much," I said tiredly but so content and resting in the moment and in powerful arms.

Tachi and Goliath smiled at each other and then at me.

"Nothing to thank for. You're family, Nate. We love you too," Tachi said, rubbing her thumb against my forehead. The echoes made me feel it like I was still a gargoyle, and I hummed just as gargoyle-happy about it.

And this time - probably because I was drunk for the first time in over a decade - my subconscious didn't question it in the slightest. I snuggled up to Goliath, closed my eyes and let myself be lulled to sleep hundreds of yards in the air.

And that was... Sassy Funny Nate. I would love to show more of him but then he wears out. But we'll see him again in the fourth book. Thanks for reading, Q.T.